Deutsche Welle, Voice of America blocked in Turkey after refusal to comply with gov’t regulation

Turkey has banned access to internet services of Deutsche Welle and the Voice of America’s Turkish edition after the two news outlets refused to obtain a government license to broadcast in Turkey.

The media authority responsible for media control, RTÜK, filed in February a lawsuit against the two news outlets on the grounds that they lacked a government permit to webcast video news. 

The two international news outlets had not complied and resisted government control over the editorial content. 

“The media licensed in Turkey are required to delete online content that RTÜK interprets as inappropriate. This is simply unacceptable for an independent broadcaster.” DW Director General Peter Limbourg said.

The move provoked outrage among journalism rights groups in the country where last year 49 news web sites were shut down and more than 11 thousand URLs were banned, according to freewebturkey.

“The ban is a clear indicator of intolerance to objective journalism. This shameful decision should be withdrawn” Cumhuriyet quoted the Contemporary Journalists Association as saying.

Both news outlets gave technical clues on how to circumvent the hedge on their twitter accounts. The Turkish netizens are used to find their ways around in a country where youtube and wikipedia have been banned for several years.